STEP FOUR ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Humans generally learn by default to put on a hard emotionally protective shell so others will not see their vulnerabilities and they won’t get hurt. However oftentimes that hard shell tends to offend or trigger others emotionally before they can actually see what is going on with the person. In other words; when we are hurt we may seem just angry or mad at someone who really has nothing to do with the reason we are actually feeling unrest. Hurt and fear by default turn to anger in most alcoholics because it is a safer emotion to portray to our fellows than an emotion that appears weak. Some say depression is anger without enthusiasm with hurt at the core. We alcoholics tend to have trust issues and we are not willing to show our real emotions to anybody. We fear for our survival in this world that we see as cruel and unsafe! This my friends is the core reason so many fear and run from doing a fourth and fifth step.So what do we do? Do we continue repressing every hurt and pain of betrayal unto infinity till it takes us down? No never! Not if we are to heal and actually be able to say “Hi, I am Lori, I am an alcoholic addict in recovery.” Not if we want a redeeming psychic change…we must find someone we are willing to trust with our feelings, our shame, and our fears. We need, yes need someone in the program who will relate to us and have compassion, someone whom we can cry to.

We must for survival sake do a thorough Fourth and a thorough Fifth Step to get out the skeletons of our past that are eating our emotions and our relationships alive!

We must make our step work personal by writing and sharing our Fifth Step in the “I” context. We should state our feelings and events with honest emotion.

IT IS THE THING WE ARE MOST ASHAMED OF THAT SHOULD BE AT THE TOP OF OUR LIST. A shallow and non-revealing Fifth Step with our most shameful events omitted will not help us. No, not if we are to recover our joy and obtain the miraculous psychic change needed to not only stay sober but stay sane enough that we do not choose suicide over sobriety like countless addicts and alcoholics have.

We are dying out there and we must take serious action for our true survival…”It is better to save our ass than save our face.” “Pride comes before a fall oh how deep that fall can be.” Hope is the answer, hold on to the hope that we really can get better with God at the helm of our step work.